


Love Is a Polaroid (Better in Picture)

by imgoingtocrash



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Celebrity, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Celebrity!Cassian, F/M, First Meeting, Fluff, Paparazzi!Jyn, other characters from rogue one/star wars are mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-25
Updated: 2017-03-25
Packaged: 2018-10-10 17:00:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,836
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10442709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imgoingtocrash/pseuds/imgoingtocrash
Summary: ““I’m not even doing anything!” Cassian shouts, almost flinging the car keys in one of his hands to the floor.Satisfied, Jyn finally stands. “Well,” she says, popping her sore knees and distractedly looking through the shots now saved to her memory card. “You’re paying my rent this month.”Cassian Andor, 26, famous film and television actor in one of the biggest science fiction franchises of the decade, lets out a huff.”Cassian is an actor in the infamous Galaxy Wars franchise. Jyn is a paparazzi. When Cassian catches Jyn taking his picture, he confronts her. It goes a bit differently than Jyn might have expected.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been preoccupied from writing between studying and focusing on writing an original short story for my creative writing course since getting back from spring break. This came to mind despite that slight block, and I’m pleased with everything that it is. 
> 
> Enjoy this little AU while I keep trying to sort out what to do with some of the other Rogue One stuff I’ve written that I’m still kicking around in my restricted free time.
> 
> The title is from Polaroid by Imagine Dragons.

“You have got to be _kidding_ me,” he says, abruptly stopping his once purposeful strut through the parking garage to stare directly at her. At first he was distractedly looking at his phone, and while that shadowed his face in the blue light’s hue, it otherwise didn’t impact her job. She snaps another shot.

Jyn shrugs in response at his open-mouthed disbelief, shifting her gaze towards the viewfinder and adjusting the f-stop. The lights of the parking garage are too inconsistent. It’s easier than working in the daytime, though. That tempts the risk of being seen even more. Her telephoto lens only zooms in so far, and her best outdoor filter got cracked on her last job. She can still take outdoor shots, but the reduced quality comes with a reduced price. At least she got some pictures in this time before he noticed her crouched behind the hood of her car.

She zooms in a little closer, taking a picture again when he shifts his weight, hands firmly on his hips, his face partially obscured in shadow. The light compliments his cheekbones in a way that parking garage lights rarely do. The crow’s feet at the edges of his eyes deepen. She could slap greyscale on this thing and put it in an art show. Even angry, actors are ridiculously photogenic.

And yet, Jyn finds herself frowning at the results. 

While the lighting isn’t optimal, these pictures of Cassian Andor out and about on a Thursday night will sell just fine. Well, they would if his face wasn’t wearing that scowl and pointing it directly her way. Audiences don’t like to see their idols unhappy. They want the pictures without thinking about the reality of photographers stalking their favorite celebrity’s every move. The exact thing she’d done to catch him on this walk to his car.

“I’m not even doing anything!” Cassian shouts, almost flinging the car keys in one of his hands to the floor.

Satisfied, Jyn finally stands. “Well,” she says, popping her sore knees and distractedly looking through the shots now saved to her memory card. “You’re paying my rent this month.”

Cassian Andor, 26, famous film and television actor in one of the biggest science fiction franchises of the decade, lets out a huff. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see him standing stock still, eyes roaming over her form. She thinks, for a moment, that he might call the police and provide a description of her to boot. While the garage isn’t private property or anything, she doesn’t need that kind of stain on her professional record. Out of self-respect, however, she doesn’t budge. Let him try and get her arrested if that’s how he wants to play it.

Then, without making a sound, he’s standing next to her. “You’re a decent photographer,” he says, eyes fixated on the picture of himself on her camera’s screen before she half jumps out of her skin. A smirk curls up his lips. “What, don’t enjoy other people getting into your personal space?”

“No,” she hisses, jerking her camera from his view and stepping back. “Especially not people like you.” If he thinks he’s going to throw some E! News-worthy tantrum and bust her camera, he can damn well forget it. These pictures are getting to the people at Empire Magazine for this month’s issue. Or whoever else will offer her top dollar. It’s never mattered who they are or what they say in the articles and tweets as long as she gets her money. 

“People like _me_?” he questions indignantly. “That’s really something! What about people like _you_? Taking my picture without even bothering to show yourself? I can’t tell if I hate you more or less for not shoving that blinding flash in my face!”

This, she thinks, is him asking for a confrontation. She has always been one to rise to the bait. She taps the preset on the camera, closing her eyes and angrily snapping the camera in his direction.

He yells, rubbing his eyes vigorously, likely to clear out the white and black dots now clouding them. She almost feels bad seeing him partially leaning on the hood of her car with his eyes all scrunched together. There’s a beat of silence as he tests his vision a few times, trying to see if it’s restored after such a full exposure.

“I—“ She starts, then clenches her fist. She shouldn’t feel bad. He’s the one antagonizing her. All of her other assignments usually just hop in the car when they see her skulking around. Of course, Andor has always been different. Paparazzi have had a reportedly hard time catching him off guard throughout his career. At red carpet events, premieres, and charity balls alike, he’s always put together. Any other time it’s like he doesn’t exist. Like he’s holed up somewhere the media can’t find him during his free time. No one before now has so carefully traced his whereabouts and actually caught him off guard, she’s sure of it. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re—“ Cassian begins to raise his voice then stops, hand still lightly hovering over his face and dropping only to get a better look at her.

“Yes,” she growls. “I’m sorry I did that, I’m sorry that I have to do this job, and I’m sorry I’ve basically been stalking you for the past week trying to take your stupid picture for the stupid _Empire_.” She turns sharply on her boots, reaching for her keys. It shouldn’t matter. She’ll get her money and pay her rent and go meet Bodhi for drinks with what’s leftover. This is just an unpleasant inconvenience.

“Wait,” Cassian says, grabbing for her arm and spinning her to face him again. She tries to jerk her arm away, but his grip is strong. He seems to notice though, looking apologetic as he removes his palm. “What you said about your rent. Is that true?”

“No,” she replies with a flat tone. Flat until it seems to rise something out of her. “I do this because I love contracting for a magazine that openly seems to crap all over the 20 year marriage of two famous, successful actors like Baze Malbus and Chirrut Imwe. I love having my contacts sneak me onto movie sets so that I can catch Leia Organa making out with Han Solo in her car between takes. And most importantly I _adore_ harassing an actor I actually liked in the stupid _Galaxy Wars_ movies in the middle of a parking garage!”

Cassian’s eyes go from wide to something more searching. Like he’s parsing her out from whatever the sporadically blinking light behind her is doing to the signs of anger on her face. She can feel her breath coming in and out too sharp. She’s said too much, he’s grating on her nerves with his stupid rich actor type of question, and she just wants to go anywhere but here, frankly.

“You like _Galaxy Wars_?” he asks, tilting his head as if trying to put her into the frame of the hundreds of people that probably tell him that every day.

“Okay, I’m leaving now—“ She clenches her teeth, frustrated with idiotic vain actors and their dumb lives that need to be captured for the world to see through her much too expensive camera lens—

“No, no, wait,” he says, tugging on her sleeve this time rather than her arm. “I just meant…look, I didn’t mean to yell at you like that. I pride myself on not being an ass just because I’m an actor. That’s Kay’s job.”

She almost smirks at that, because naturally Kay The Second—known widely for his parental linage of talent—is the last actor that instigated confrontation and promptly tipped her very expensive camera over lens down, cracking the fragile glass filter against the pavement. She’s intermittently been following him around the last few weeks trying to pay for a replacement.

“I only mean that…” He shrugs, scuffing a leather boot against the concrete dust on the ground. His open suit jacket shifts on his shoulders. “If you were a fan…I could just let you take some pictures, if you wanted. You know, as a thank you.”

“I…” She finds no words will come. His smile, something less arrogant or sardonic and more genuine, is showing a hint of teeth. The fringe of his hair swoops lightly over his eye. His brown eyes are light, brought up by his questioning eyebrows. She finds herself wanting to take more pictures of that face. She wants to see what his smile looks like, full and bursting up his cheeks. She wants to see him wearing oversaturated clothes against backgrounds of white. She wants to capture the shifting, dark tufts of his beard when he scratches them in a moment of awkwardness. “Thank _me_?” she asks instead.

“Y’know, for getting me where I am. Supporting my career. Letting my hang out with people I consider close friends on set for so long. Normal fan stuff.”

She thinks nothing about this is normal. She’d only gone to see his film at first because Bodhi had begged when it first came out a few years back, despite her never having seen the originals. 

“Would you take it back if I told you my friend and I snuck into the theater instead?” She bites her lip, tries to tamp down her smile.

“Oh no!” Cassian says, but chuckles with no trace of actual reproach. “Seriously?”

“Oh, you made a fine worldwide gross. Besides, I went back and paid when I saw it the third time.” Jyn looks down at her camera, still hanging tightly from her neck strap. She rotates the zoom ring back from its previous setting, then gestures Cassian to step back with her hand so that she can readjust the focus. “Alright, stand there and look heroic. The Murder Star is blowing up on the horizon and all that.”

“You do know _Luke’s_ character is the one that blows up—“

“Did you miss when I said I saw the film _three times_? Not to mention the marathons of the others. This is my photoshoot. In this one, you’re the main hero.”

“Okay, who’s my love interest then?” Cassian’s face is disinterested when he says it, despite his tone. Instead, he’s looking off pensively at the poster about parking safety somewhere along the wall. She captures the moment and grins to herself at the result.

He does give a very heroic profile. However, some actors _do_ need to get into character, even at an impromptu photoshoot. She points in her direction as an answer, more towards the camera than anything else, but he shakes his head with a laugh regardless.

“Yeah,” he says, looking at her eyes, seemingly straight through the viewfinder. “I could see that.”

His eyes are shining in some indecipherable way. She thinks if she turned the camera around, hers might be doing the same.

She takes another picture.

**Author's Note:**

> I can’t believe I wrote Galaxy Wars and The Murder Star as the names of the Star Wars rip-offs. Super unoriginal here, folks. Don’t ask me what the “original trilogy” films in this universe are though, since the idea was that our Star Wars original trilogy characters recently filmed the Galaxy Wars equivalent of A New Hope in this alternate universe and that Cassian in this story is currently filming the Empire Strikes Back equivalent. God, why does that sound so complicated?
> 
> Since I don’t know what kind of camera a paparazzi might use, I tried to be as general as possible while also taking inspiration for Jyn’s equipment from the cameras I regularly use in my production courses. I’ll pretend that counts as studying.
> 
> The response and works from this fandom are, as always, amazing. I appreciate all of the kudos/comments/etc. You have no clue how much it brightens my day to see us all still engaging with this movie and encouraging even more fic to be written for these two. I'm also imgoingtocrash on tumblr if you ever wanna cry about them with me.


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